Left’s Pre-emptive Hits on Walker, Christie, & Perry

Just this week, two seemingly unrelated events unfolded, but they actually reveal a new liberal tactic. The Hillary Clinton Front-Group, American Bridge, filed a bogus federal complaint against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and then a federal probe into New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found no evidence linking Christie to “Bridge-Gate.” Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry was indicted last month. Make no mistake, these events are related. Emerging is a new liberal tactic to gin up legal proceedings against conservatives and then use the media to amplify the investigations and make the officials look guilty. These attacks are part of a coordinated hit job on Republican Presidential Prospects to weaken them, while simultaneously smearing conservatives as untrustworthy criminals.

All three of the separate attacks on Walker, Christie, and Perry have too much in common to simply ignore as politics as usual. The Left’s tactic is simple: 1) find a friendly investigator or action to investigate; 2) highlight the worst of the accusations; and 3) watch the national media have a feeding frenzy. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these smears to see the common threads.

Governor Scott Walker currently is running his third campaign in four years and the Left is trying to take him out with a John Doe Investigation- Wisconsin’s version of a grand jury. But two judges (state and federal) have shut down the investigation and the partisan prosecutor has a personal vendetta against Walker (On Wednesday the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals undid the federal district court injunction because the state court had already stalled the investigation). The court’s rulings have not stopped the liberal group American Bridge from attacking. In February, American Bridge launched a website called JohnDoeWalker.com, devoted to exposing information about Walker. This week, the American Democracy Legal Fund asked the US Justice Department to investigate Walker over the passage of mining legislation as it relates to campaign contributions he received. The Left hopes they can defeat Walker this fall or severely wound him from 2016 contention.

In early January, the media reported that Governor Chris Christie's Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly was involved in the planning of New Jersey toll lane closures. Rapidly, the Left sprung into action, accusing Christie of personal involvement in the scandal and then covering it up. An investigation was soon underway. According to Politico, the Democratic noise machine sought to “permanently cripple his [Christie’s] reputation as a likable and honest political maverick, kneecapping him as a 2016 competitor in the process” regardless of what the facts were. Polling showed damage to Christie’s reputation. But on Thursday, reports came out that the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation has found no evidence that he knew of the traffic lane closures in advance.

In August, a grand jury indicted Governor Rick Perryfor alleged abuse of power. The issue was his threat to veto funding for a District Attorney’s unit unless the prosecutor stepped down. Again, the leftwing machine fanned the flames and the national media pounced, ignoring the circumstances and motives for the veto threat and indictment. Almost absent from reports was the fact that the motive for the veto was the hypocrisy of a DA running a Public Integrity Unit when she had been drunk driving at nearly three times the legal limit. The media also missed the biased nature of a grand jury member, the special prosecutor’s questionable past, and how this District Attorney’s office regularly targets conservative officials.

These three attacks are coordinated to convince the public that conservatives are corrupt criminals and are directed at popular Governors, who could decide to run for President in 2016. The Left understands that Governors often have an easier time running for President, partly because they are able to better control their brand.

The national media plays willing accomplice in the smears because they run with the most damaging headlines, without providing context. The media regularly trumpets pieces of information that look devastating and hardly mention the big picture when all the information comes out. In Walker’s case, after the prosecutors’ legal theory had been dismissed, they leaked documents to the press. The media then ran with headlines such as, “Walker part of Criminal Scheme.” Two weeks later when the prosecutor admitted Walker was not a target, there was barely a mention on the same websites and newscasts.

The Left is pre-emptively attacking these Governors to clear a path for a Liberal (Hillary Clinton?) in 2016. They have calculated that the easily distracted public will only remember headlines like “Perry Indicted” and “Walker, part of Criminal Scheme” in upcoming elections. Their goal is to make all conservatives appear as criminals and to hurt the Governors in the long-term. The media is missing how all of these attacks are part of a new tactic, meant to clear the way for the Left’s presidential nominee. Thankfully, the Left fails to understand that the public is smart enough to see through the lies.